Left to right: Oregon's Trevor Dunbar, Stanford's Elliott Heath, Nike's
Hohamed Trafeh and U.S. Army World Class Athlete Program SPC Robert
Cheseret finish the first heat of the men's 5,000-meter preliminaries
June 25 at the 2012 U.S. Olympic Track and Field Team Trials at historic
Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore. U.S. Army
photo by Tim Hipps, IMCOM Public Affairs

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A Kodiak
runner is one step - make that five kilometers - away from the Olympic Games in
London this summer. Trevor Dunbar, a three-time All-American sophomore at the
University of Oregon took third in his 5-K heat at the U.S. Olympic Track and
Field Trials last night in Eugene.

His time of
13-minutes 49.19-seconds was good for third in the first of two qualifying
races. He was 11th overall after his qualifier and will run in the
5,000 meter finals on Thursday night. It will air live on NBC Sports Channel at
6:30 Alaska time (GCI ch. 39).

Dunbar trailed
the pack for much of the race, but moved up to second with three laps to go
before fading to sixth as the pace picked up. But going into the home stretch,
Dunbar turned on the afterburners and finished third, just two-seconds off the
winning time. The top six runners from each heat, plus the next four fastest
times qualified to run in the final.

Until
Saturday afternoon, Dunbar wasn't even assured of a place in the race. He
qualified 25th out of 25, and could have been bumped if a faster
runner had decided to run in the 5-K. Five kilometers is just over three-miles.